Scientific Forecaster Discussion

Discussion...high pressure will move east of The Divide today, placing central Idaho and western Montana under warm southwesterly flow. As such, today will be another day of above normal temperatures. Monday will also be a warm and dry day, but temperatures will run a few degrees cooler across the region.

A well defined cold front will slowly work its way across the northern rockies late Monday night. Some thunderstorms are possible as the frontal boundary pushes across SW Montana on Tuesday. Lightning and heavy rain seem like the most reasonable threats, given the meager amounts of instability typically present at this time of year.

Forecast models continue to struggle with the details of what will happen over the rest of this week. However, there are some broad scale features that the models do agree upon. First, all the models keep some form of cooler, low pressure troughing in place across the northern rockies throughout the week. Thus, confidence in much cooler conditions remains high. It also seems reasonable to have higher chances for precipitation throughout the week, given the propensity for frequent showery weather under these deeper, elongated troughing patterns. Be that as it may, models are still holding the details regarding timing of when the heaviest precipitation may occur very close to the Vest, so to speak. Outside of the cold front passage Monday night into Tuesday, forecast confidence remains quite low as we await reasonable run-to-run and model-to-model consistency.

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Aviation...another day of VFR conditions is expected today. After 15/2100z, terminals may begin to pick up a blustery west-SW wind, lasting through 16/0100z. Kbtm and ksmn will be the terminals most likely to see gusty winds during this time period.